Tentative agreement reached with dockworkers

By Kiah Collier

February 2, 2013Updated: February 2, 2013 6:20pm

After nearly a year of contentious negotiations, the union representing more than 14,500 dockworkers at East Coast and Gulf Coast container ports have reached a tentative agreement with employers for a new, six-year contract.

A top federal mediator made the announcement late Friday just after the International Longshoremen's Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, representing container carriers, direct employers and port associations, reached a provisional deal over a New Jersey bargaining table just days before the already extended current contract is set to expire.

"I am extremely pleased to announce that the parties have reached a tentative agreement for a comprehensive successor master agreement," said George H. Cohen, director of Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, in a statement.

The parties had been negotiating since March and twice extended the expiration date of the current contract to continue talks as the longshoremen's union - which hasn't held a walkout since 1977 - threatened to stop handling the 40-foot steel containers that carry nonperishable items, mostly consumer goods like clothing and televisions.

That sparked sparking concern and outcry among retailers, other businesses and ports about what could have been a devastating blow to the supply chain. The ports covered under the contract, including Houston, New Orleans, Miami and New York/New Jersey, move about 40 percent of the nation's container cargo.

The Port of Houston Authority had been preparing to shut down the two container terminals that generate a majority of its revenue.

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"The retail industry, which supports one in every four U.S. jobs, is pleased to hear that the ILA and USMX have reached a tentative, long-term master contract," said Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, in a statement.

The world's largest retail trade association had been pushing for a deal and urging President Barack Obama to invoke a 1947 federal law to prevent a strike, particularly when the contract was set to expire amid the holiday shipping season, saying it would wreak havoc on the supply chain and harm the national economy.

"If the tentative agreement holds, the new labor contract will bring much-needed certainty and predictability to the supply chain for retailers, manufacturers, farmers and other industries that rely on the ports to move the nation's commerce and trade," Shay declared in the statement.

Cohen, who became involved in talks in September, declined to outline the details of the tentative agreement, which his statement said was "out of respect for the parties' ratification processes, and consistent with the agency's long-standing confidentiality policy."

He also said the tentative agreement "is subject to the ratification procedures of both parties and, as well, to agreements being achieved in a number of local union negotiations." Those local negotiations, he said, "are ongoing and will continue without interruption to any port operation."

Nathan Wesely, president of the Houston-based West Gulf Maritime Association, which represents employers operating at the Houston port, said in an email that local bargaining is expected to be completed by March 1.

The association estimates that 1,000 union workers are on the wharves at the Port of Houston each workday.

"We urge the parties to quickly complete any outstanding negotiations, including local negotiations at each of the individual 14 ports, and quickly ratify the new labor agreement," the retail federation's Shay said.